Peak oil review – Jan 18
A weekdly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-Record Asian demand
-The Alberta oil sands
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
Consumption & Demand
Food, agriculture, and a new economy? – Jan 18
-Emissions from UK food industry far higher than believed
-Poachers Arrive at Egg Farms
-Striking a bargain: With supply limited, state targets water demand
-Will Anyone Stand Up For American Industry?
-The Key to Local Food Systems’ Survival: Strong Community Support
Web & Media – Jan 18
‘Eco’ packaging
-Google defies Chinese censors after cyberattacks on Gmail accounts of activists
-Public Produce: Filling the Sidewalks with Fruit Trees
-As the World Burns
-Movie Review Friday: The Road
-A New Eden, Both Cosmic and Cinematic
-Photo Gallery: Homes for a Changing Climate
Useful work versus useless toil revisited
William Morris offered a radical vision that sounds very much like the radical vision of those now proposing the relocalization of human society in response to the myriad challenges we face to our very survival as a species.
The Peak Oil Crisis: Gasoline Prices Revisited
It has been 18 months since we all worried very much about high oil prices. Starting in July 2008 gasoline prices took an historic plunge dropping from a U.S. average high of $4.11 a gallon all the way down to $1.70 in January 2009.
ODAC Newsletter – Jan 15
Oil prices began the year with a rally, reaching nearly $84 a barrel as temperatures across much of the northern hemisphere required the heating to be turned up a notch.
Peak oil notes – Jan 14
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-China’s Economy
China: growing like gangbusters or bubble ready to burst? – Jan 14
-Oil Demand Seems to be Moving Up – Are Higher Prices around the Corner?
-To Slow Growth, China Raises an Interest Rate
-Chinese Transportation Growth
-US raises concern over China oil policy
The Costs of Community
Discussions of community in peak oil circles, as elsewhere, tend to focus exclusively on the benefits to be gained from participation in community, and rarely discuss the costs — a point that may have more than a little to do with the very limited success of communitarian projects so far. Given that community organization is one of the few tools able to cope with significant features of our present predicament, it’s high time to grapple with both sides of the equation.
Report of the Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force: Redefining Prosperity: Energy Descent and Community Resilience
On December 2, 2009, the Bloomington City Council overwhelmingly approved the report of the Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force entitled Redefining Prosperity: Energy Descent and Community Resilience (PDF 13.36 MB). The report is the product of a seven-member task force and outlines the community’s vulnerability to a decline in cheap oil and proposes numerous mitigation strategies.
Solutions & sustainability – Jan 13
-2020 vision: Second-hand Prius, anyone? Car use declines across Europe as society returns to medieval values
-America’s New Year’s resolution: Break our addiction to oil
-Retired, no, refired, yes: on call for collapse
-Portland ratchets up volunteer-led ‘tool libraries’ that lend tools for free
-Nine meals from anarchy
-Boiler scrappage scheme offers £400-off vouchers
Review: The American West at Risk by Howard G. Wilshire, Jane E. Nielson and Richard W. Hazlett
The American West at Risk’s 13 chapters examine some of the major human-caused environmental problems now threatening the 11 contiguous Western states…Citing trustworthy, peer-reviewed studies in support of its arguments, and written by three trained scientists, this book has every claim for credibility—and is an enlightening and gripping read for scientists and laypeople alike.
